3D printing is an additive manufacturing process, as opposed to a subtractive manufacturing process which involves milling or cutting of pieces in order to build a designed shape. In 3D printing process, a material is added in successive layers until it forms a shape of a desired product.
In 3D printing, hundreds or thousands of layers of material are “printed” layer upon layer using various materials, most of which are commonly plastic polymers or metals. Generally, the printing technologies are material dependent. For instance, photopolymer liquids are used in jetted 3D printer, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) material is used in fusion deposition modeling (FDM) printer, and metals are used in laser sintering.
Among these 3D printing technologies, light polymerized technologies, such as stereolithography (SLA) and digital light processing (DLP) have incomparable advantages over FDM, such as higher resolution, better mechanical strength, and smoother surface.
In view of the demand for SLA/DLP technologies, polymer compositions with improved performance are desired.